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Copyright of Comechingonia: Revista de Arqueología is the property of Comechingonia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Comechingonia: Revista de Arqueología is the property of Comechingonia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: Documents from chroniclers, naturalists and voyagers that traveled across the Pampas and Patagonia (Argentina) between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries are analyzed with the aim of building material expectations about the profit of Rheidae used by the historical known natives. This corpus of data is treated as a heuristic tool in the study of local hunter–gatherer’s archaeological sites, since bones and eggshells of rheids are recorded in most of the Pampean and Patagonian archaeological contexts from early to late Holocene times. Although remains of specimens of this ostrich-like family conforms a small portion of the whole archaeofaunal assemblages, chronicler’s narratives describe an intensive and preferential use of the ñandú (rheas) by the natives. The proposal considers that it is possible to use the ethnohistorical record as a tool to generate material expectations by means of analogies, in the same way that the ethnographical, ethnoarchaeological and experimental studies are used. However, difficulties appear when applying the ethnohistorical information to the archaeological record, considering that those descriptions are involved in analytical categories related to the voyager’s historical and social contexts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Intersecciones en Antropología is the property of Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: A 20m thick sequence of aeolian deposits and palaeosols, deposited above Neogene marine sediments adjacent to the shallow saline ephemeral Lake Arturo in interior Tierra del Fuego, is described. A deposit of archaeological stone artifacts and bones, the Lake Arturo 1 archaeological site, is located in a deflation hollow near the top of the aeolian sequence. The sequence of nine aeolian deposits, including eight palaeosols and capped by the contemporary soil, provides evidence of environmental changes which have occurred during the Holocene in the cold Fuegian steppe, beginning as early as the Late Glacial–Early Holocene transition. A chronostratigraphy is provided by guanaco (Lama guanicoe) and Canidae bones embedded within palaeosols and organic matter content, radiocarbon dated from 9951±59 BP (11,304cal. BP) at the base of the sequence to 434±43 BP (471cal. BP) near the top. A tephra layer between Palaeosols 4 and 5 is interpreted from its geochemical fingerprint as the product of one of the mid-Holocene eruptions of Mt. Burney, located in the Southern Patagonian Andes. It is suggested that the accumulation of the aeolian sediments occurred throughout most of the Holocene, as a result of both local acquisition of fine particles derived from the weathering and erosion of the basal Neogene marine sediments, and deflation from the intermittently dry lake bed, as well as deposition of material transported by wind from more distant sources. The orientation of the aeolian deposits suggests a more northwesterly wind direction instead of the present westerlies. Weakly developed A horizons capping each of the sediment units suggest that the landscape was sensitive to environmental change, from more arid conditions when the aeolian deposits accumulated to brief periods of landscape stability when topsoil development occurred. Evidence of human occupation in Lake Arturo 1 is confined to the upper part of the sequence (ca. 500 years BP) and is interpreted as a place for primary butchering and raw material acquisition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The absolute chronology of the Patagonian glaciations is one of the most complete in the world and probably the best available for the Southern Hemisphere outside Antarctica. The oldest known Patagonian glaciations took place between approximately 7 and 5Ma (Latest Miocene–Earliest Pliocene). A minimum of eight glaciations occurred in the Middle–Late Pliocene (Oxygen Isotopic Stages 54–82). The Great Patagonian Glaciations (GPG) developed between 1.168 and 1.016Ma (OIS 30–34; Early Pleistocene). After the GPG, 14–16 cold (glacial/stadial) geoclimatic events intercalated with their corresponding warm (interglacial/interstadial) equivalents. Thirteen post-GPG moraines have been identified, some of the Early–Middle Pleistocene and others of the Last Glaciation (LG). The LG reached its maximum around 25,000 and ended nearly 16,000 calendar years ago (OIS 2; Late Pleistocene). Finally, two readvances (or stationary phases) took place during the Late Glacial (15,000–10,000 14C years BP). During these glacial events, climatic and environmental changes had a great influence on the landscape and Patagonian/Pampean ecosystem development during the last 5Myr. Loess/paleosol sequences probably developed in the Pampas along this period, as in northern China, though much more poorly preserved. The model of replacement of the terrestrial Pampean faunas since the LGM proposes the exchange of Patagonian for Brazilian species in the Holocene with megafauna extinction. If this model fits previous cycles as well, regional faunistic interchange would have taken place at least 14 times since the GPG and perhaps more than 50 times since the Early Pliocene. These mechanisms should be taken into consideration in the study of paleobiogeographical distribution, ecosystem displacements, and extinction processes since 5Ma. The environmental impact of climatic changes also should be considered when analyzing the early peopling of Patagonia during Late Glacial times. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]